Under Your Eaves

Under Your Eaves contains Eric Teperman’s first four books of poems, now out of print, and the most recent previously unpublished poems, all in one book. This new book represents his entire life’s work of poetry.

(Sample poem number 19)

I was living a noisy life on a continent of noise.
How did I ever hear his silence?

When he came,
the whole world seemed filled with his beauty.
It seemed so natural that everything emanated from him.
Somehow we could hear his silence, and not only from him,
but from inside the birdsong, inside the trees,
even inside the ways and passions of men.

His face, his hands, just the simple way he stood on his feet
seemed both the source and culmination of everything in this world.

Even now my words are barren and vacant
except when filled with his silence,
a silence so powerful and vibrant
that the cup of my life keeps reshaping itself
to the silence he pours into it.

Published 2022